In general, project management is understood to include planning, organizing, motivating, and controlling resources to achieve specific goals. In the construction industry, for example, construction management firms may be engaged in medium and large projects (e.g., sport stadiums, hospitals and healthcare facilities, office buildings, power plants, manufacturing facilities, airports, seaports and railway terminals, multi-unit residential complexes, etc.). Throughout the entire process of construction (e.g., from planning to handover), large teams of construction professionals and specialists may have to be managed so as to ensure that all aspects of the construction project (e.g., partnering, estimating, purchasing, scheduling, engineering, safety, community relations, etc.) go smoothly to produce high-quality projects on time.
Conventionally, coordinating such large teams involved a lot of paperwork, including documentation related to data in the field. This is especially true in performing field management, punch list management, quality, commissioning, turn-over and safety management, and warranty- and maintenance-related functions. Such documents include, but are not limited to, field inspections, punch lists, vendor lists, resource lists, and task lists. Consequently, firms have sought processes that keep their project coordinators and subcontractors on the job site working (i.e., building and maintaining), rather than in an office shuffling papers. Furthermore, the use of documentation may slow down productivity simply due to the fact that not all of the field personnel may have access to the recorded field data, thus possibly leading to work duplication, unnecessary communications, or other cost-increasing problems.
As a result, some systems have been developed that provide project management via wireless computing devices and cloud-based servers, wherein data related to construction processes (e.g. field inspection data, punch list data, commissioning data, etc) may be more easily recorded in the field (i.e., on a computing device) and more easily exchanged between personnel (i.e., synchronization of data between computing devices), thereby improving the overall construction process.
While current management systems and software may overcome some of the drawbacks of conventional construction management (i.e. paperwork and disorganization), such systems have drawbacks. For example, throughout the life-cycle of a construction project (e.g., from initial conception and planning through completion and turnover) it is important to assure and verify that all (or some, depending on the scope) systems and components of a building, for example, are designed, installed, tested, operated, and maintained according to the operational requirements of the owner or final client. This may include verifying the subsystems for mechanical (HVAC), plumbing, electrical, fire/life safety, building envelopes, interior systems (example laboratory units), cogeneration, utility plants, sustainable systems, lighting, wastewater, controls, and building security to achieve the owner's project requirements as intended by the building owner and as designed by the building architects and engineers.
As part of the assurance process, building information modeling (BIM) may be used, particularly with respect to a construction project, to ensure that the systems and components of a building, for example, are designed, installed, tested, operated, and maintained according to the building design. BIM is a digital representation of physical and functional characteristics of a facility. Architects and/or sub-contractors may utilize BIM programs and software to build detailed, three-dimensional (3D) BIM models of construction projects before ground is even broken. These 3D models may include informational data associated with the construction project, including geometry, spatial relationships, geographic information, quantities and properties of building components, equipment information, and detailed layouts and dimensions of the building. BIM models may be relied upon to resolve in-field conflicts during the construction process before they arise. With the use of BIM models, construction teams may coordinate their efforts using a 3D representation of a building that enables them to easily visualize the architectural and engineering designs that govern how construction should proceed.
Current project management systems and software lack flexibility when carrying out certain functions, such as the commissioning process. In particular, current systems may lack the ability to provide access to BIM models in the field. In turn, users in the field have limited access to informational data, such as types, quantities, properties, and placement of building components, as well as any changes or revisions to the overall building design, thereby reducing the BIM model's effectiveness in avoiding conflicts and preventing the need for re-work during the commissioning process. In turn, the lack of accessibility of BIM model in the field may result in increased costs, time delays, as well as potential risks of injury in the event that certain components are incompatible with one another.